Meeting for Sufferings: March 2025 afternoon session
Representation at ‘continuing’ Yearly Meeting; sustainability; challenging new police powers
Representation at ‘continuing’ Yearly Meeting
The afternoon began with Siobhán Haire, deputy recording clerk for Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), introducing Sarah Donaldson, who talked about proposals for managing representation at the new ‘continuing’ Yearly Meeting (YM) sessions. Sarah Donaldson is a new member of BYM’s management team: the senior change leader in Quaker governance. ‘A big part of that is ensuring the transition to continuing YM goes well,’ Friends were told.
A meaty session followed, divided into three categories for clarity. The initial paper for consideration dealt with two matters. Firstly, Church Government Advisory Group (CGAG)’s thinking on the nature of representation – with some ‘key purposes’ set out – and suggestions as to how representation from Area Meetings (AMs) and other bodies might work. The second matter was a proposal from BYM trustees for a system to support AMs and other bodies that need financial assistance to attend YM.
Elizabeth Allen, assistant clerk to Meeeting for Sufferings (MfS), asked Friends if they agreed with CGAG’s proposals (which can be viewed in detail in the online MfS papers). One asked if there would be online availability (to which Sarah answered yes), while another highlighted how important their ‘alternate’ representative had been. There was ‘something special about having two of us supporting each other – I’m sad to see that go’. Sarah acknowledged the benefits of alternates, but said that, if there were Friends sharing the role in the continuing YM, each only coming to half the Meetings a year, ‘we could find that becoming disjointed very quickly’. There was nothing stopping supporters coming along as attenders to ‘walk by your side’, Sarah added, and ‘if [wanting an alternate] was a concern, Friends could raise it with their AM’.
‘My question is about accountability,’ another Friend raised. ‘If anyone can go to YM, what’s going to happen about decision making?’ This was an ‘interesting’ question, said Sarah, emphasising that, in a gathered Meeting, ‘we are together seeking the will of God… all of us must be responsible for guiding the group to find that, and helping us to listen… a decision of YM will be a decision of YM… my hope would be that through spreading and sharing that accountability, we can strengthen it’.
One Friend queried the circumstances in which non-members could be excluded from decision making in closed sessions, as the paper proposed. Paul Parker, BYM’s recording clerk, responded that there had been ‘enough discussions to know we still think membership is important… the presumption has to be that there are some things then that we only want members to decide’. This might include changing the nature of the membership process itself, or ‘some kind of existential crisis facing the Society’. These were ‘extreme scenarios’, stressed Paul, adding that there had not been a closed session in his living memory, but we need the ability to have them ‘otherwise membership becomes meaningless’.
Elizabeth Allen asked if Friends were happy with the advice on representation, and the recommendation on numbers set out in the paper. The room hoped so. Friends also agreed to BYM trustees’ proposal that the funding system used for MfS representation be continued for YM. This would likely cost more, and AMs were urged to ‘please help if you can’.
Sarah Donaldson then introduced the second paper, on financial support for individuals going to YM. Friends agreed to keep the current bursary grant as it ‘works well overall’, but with ‘tweaks’ and a changed name. The final minute asked MfS representatives to ‘encourage attendance at YM; find out about any local sources of financial help; and ensure Friends know that there is financial support available’.
The session ended with Paul Parker sharing the dates for the continued YM sessions in 2026, 2027 and 2028.
Sustainability
In the next item, Oliver Robertson, BYM’s head of Witness and Worship, spoke to BYM’s work on the climate emergency. This paper is offered every year, but this time it was organised differently, with new headings: ‘Sustainability within the operations of BYM’; ‘Local and AM info on sustainability from annual reports’; and ‘Climate witness and climate justice’.
‘It would be helpful to get feedback on that,’ added Oliver, stressing that the report was ‘an incomplete overview of everything that’s happening across Quakers,’ and didn’t include the breadth of Friends’ witness, such as Quaker Recognised Bodies operating in the climate world like Living Witness, or Quaker Support for Climate Action (QS4CA).
Oliver was happy to take questions. One Friend asked about the quality of information that AMs are passing on about sustainability in their annual returns. Oliver replied that the data was ‘variable’, which was why aligning the reporting model with the Eco Church certification scheme was helpful, as that provides ‘consistency across different bodies’.
‘Are we taking into account the invisible secondary costs of AI, in terms of energy [consumption]?’ another Friend queried. ‘This is something that we are thinking about,’ replied Oliver, as well as ‘how much we want to, and should be, using AI in YM activities’. Number-crunching by Greengage – which now provides BYM’s carbon reports – does include third-party emissions, but not all organisations do in their net zero targets.
A question was then put to the room, on whether Friends would still like to see a sustainability monitoring group (the current one has no members). If so, ‘what would Friends like to see it doing or being?’
The previous monitoring group ‘failed because it had no place to input into the committee structure of the Yearly Meeting’, said one Friend, which left members upset and frustrated. ‘Whatever we do, it has to have a proper place in the formal governance for it to be effective.’
If there is a new sustainability group, could we make sure ‘it is tasked with setting ourselves a target and a roadmap’, which is ‘costed and built into a workable strategy’, asked one Friend.
Another representative suggested that, while there had been ‘pieces of outstanding work’ since the Canterbury Commitment in 2011, ‘when we look at our emissions, we’re not moving in the direction we want to’. Other churches had come out with net zero targets ‘and we haven’t’, they added, stressing that there is a legal obligation to be net zero by 2050.
Another Friend highlighted the climate work of Living Witness, the Quaker Arts Network, and QS4CA, and asked if there was ‘a way for their work to be gathered and shared so we all feel the benefit’? In Living Witness, there was a ‘variety of feeling’, one Quaker shared. ‘Some of us think there will be societal collapse – for those of us [who do], the thought of measuring seems like a distraction’.
The session ended on a more optimistic note, as one Friend said 2011 was a ‘really inspiring time’, but something was needed now to ‘reinvigorate us’. This was particularly pressing with ‘what’s happening in the US… it seems like an important time that we stand up and be counted’.
The final minute put the future of the sustainability monitoring group in the hands of the new Agenda Planning Committee for continuing Yearly Meeting, and identified some matters for discernment.
Challenging new police powers
The final session focused on how Friends could challenge new police powers, and support Friends suffering for their witness. This was in light of minutes received at MfS in December from three AMs, expressing concern about the impact these powers are having on peaceful protest.
Oliver Robertson introduced the item, reminding Friends of the original purpose of MfS: to alleviate the suffering of individuals and their families in facing the consequences of witnessing to their faith, and in challenging the legal framework that attempted to shackle them. Citing the example of the Stansted Fifteen activists – who faced imprisonment for blocking a deportation flight in 2017, and were supported by Friends watching in court, others writing to MPs, offering rooms, or making soup – he said: ‘Sometimes we underestimate the range of activities and the value of that accompaniment. We’re not all called to face arrest, but we’re all called to support and uphold people acting for conscience’s sake.’
QS4CA often knew about court trials coming up, he added, and was looking for ways to create networks of Quaker support. ‘What is it that we can do to help reduce some of the injustice, pain and brutalising effects when the full force of the state is brought against people acting peacefully for conscience’s sake?’
One of the problems was that ‘we’re not sure what we’re allowed to do… without risking penalty,’ suggested one Friend, asking for a Quaker organisation to give ‘solidly trustworthy advice’ on this. ‘If it’s legal, is there any way we could set up a fund for those Quakers having to pay a cash price for their conscience?’
Another Friend described the situation as ‘very disturbing’, and likened it to Nazi Germany and ‘how, gradually, freedom was no longer available to a number of people… If we cave in and don’t protest, then what happens next?’
‘I’m happy to support people in trouble, but really is there anything we can do to put pressure to remove restrictions so we don’t all live in fear?’ asked another Friend, warning the room against just accepting the status quo.
One representative brought an urgent, specific request from some local Friends active in the Northern Friends Peace Board: ‘They urge us to consider taking Meeting for Sufferings back to its roots as a mechanism for providing material support, aid and succour to Friends imprisoned or harassed by authorities, and to be active campaigners against this kind of legislature.’
‘The legislation passed is only relevant to England and Wales, but the situation is not much better in Scotland,’ offered another Friend, citing the case of a local Quaker who’d been arrested and remanded in prison for stickering items from Israel. ‘We are also in need of advice and support.’
A draft minute was offered, with one Friend emphasising that ‘nagging government, not just upholding Friends’ was crucial. The final minute noted the ‘creeping repression’ of the state, and that ‘sanctions are unevenly applied and that we are drifting towards the unacceptable… We look to work towards the repeal of the measures…[and] expect to return to this matter at a future Meeting’.
See www.quaker.org.uk/mfspapers for the minutes.
